Pence aides decline to talk about direct conversations with Trump even as they answer other questions
Katelyn Polantz, Ryan Nobles, Gloria Borger and Jamie Gangel

Top aides to Vice President Mike Pence did not discuss direct conversations with former President Donald Trump over several hours of questioning in recent interviews with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, three sources familiar with the probe tell CNN.

The aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, drew that line on what they'd be willing to discuss because Trump's legal team had instructed them not to reveal presidential conversations that the former President's lawyers believe should be covered under executive privilege, the sources said.

The committee was aware there would be privilege concerns. The privilege claims rarely came into play during the uncontentious interviews, and the Pence aides only declined to answer a few questions, according to sources. The witnesses did answer questions about conversations they had with the vice president, the sources said.

The parameters set in the interviews are the latest indication that Trump still seeks to keep secret his actions in the White House up to and on January 6, 2021 -- and reveal some details about exactly how his legal team is trying to do that.

Specifically, Trump's team is invoking the presidential communications privilege that protects from disclosure communications with the president directly so that there can be candor in executive branch decision-making.

As CNN has reported, Pence would prefer his aides act as the former vice president's "proxy" so he does not have to appear. And deferring to Trump on executive privilege claims sends a message to the former President and his base that Pence and his aides are not crossing him.

Representatives for Short, Jacob and the Trump campaign didn't respond to requests for comment this week.

Trump's legal team is still trying to draw lines around executive privilege despite losing a lawsuit against the House investigation at the Supreme Court. Also this week ...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/03/politics ... index.html

Mike Pence: Trump is "wrong" that he could have overturned 2020 election
The statement marks by far Pence's strongest rebuke of Trump in the year since the duo left office
By BRETT BACHMAN

Former Vice President Mike Pence had some choice words for his previous boss Friday — saying Donald Trump was "wrong" to insist earlier this week that Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election and that the Republican Party should move on from the twice-impeached ex-president's continuing crusade to falsely cast doubt upon his loss to Joe Biden.

"President Trump is wrong," Pence told a group of conservative lawyers gathered in Florida for a Federalist Society event, according to The New York Times. "I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone."

"And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president," he added.

The statement marks by far Pence's strongest rebuke of Trump in the year since the duo left office. The former vice president has largely kept silent about the pressure campaign against him by Trump and his allies in the White House, saying simply that ...

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/04/mike-p ... rned-2020/

The flip side - if Trump was right then Harris would be able to overturn the next election if she didn't like the results

Arizona’s Right Wing Sought Power to Overturn Votes. Rusty Bowers Said No.
The speaker of the Republican-controlled Arizona House — who supported Donald J. Trump in 2020 — just torpedoed a bill that would have let lawmakers reject the results of an election.
Blake Hounshell and Leah Askarinam

It is a dark time in the life of the American experiment. The world’s oldest democracy, once assumed to be unbreakable, often appears to be coming apart at the rivets.

From his Florida exile, a defeated leader, whose efforts to overturn the last election are still coming into view, is working to place loyalists in key offices across the country, and his followers are racing to install themselves at the controls of future elections.

Yet in Arizona this week, the unlikeliest of characters just stepped forward with a palm raised to the forces of Donald J. Trump.

When right-wing lawmakers there pushed a bill that would have given the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to unilaterally reject the results of an election and force a new one, Rusty Bowers said no.

For decades, Bowers, the unassuming speaker of the Arizona House, has represented die-hard Republican beliefs, supporting the kinds of low-tax, limited-government policies that made the state’s Barry Goldwater a conservative icon.

Bowers could have sat on the bill, letting it die a quiet death. Instead, he killed it through an aggressive legislative maneuver that left even ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/p ... ights.html

The North Carolina elections board said in a court filing it HAS the power to DISQUALIFY Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn from running for re-election over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5934 ... om-running

National Archives seeks Justice Department investigation of Trump's handling of White House documents
Evan Perez

The National Archives has asked the Department of Justice to investigate former President Donald Trump's handling of White House records, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The source said the Archives is seeking a review of whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations, and other possible violations, including the handling of classified information.

It is not clear if the Justice Department will launch a formal investigation, as a vast majority of referrals to the department do not end up sparking a formal investigation. The Justice Department declined to comment.

The Washington Post was first to report the request.

In a statement Wednesday, the Archives said, "We do not comment on potential or ongoing investigations." The request came after recent revelations that the National Archives had to retrieve 15 boxes of records that had ended up with Trump in Mar-a-Lago and that other documents given to the Archives were torn up and had to be pieced back together.

A person familiar with the matter previously told CNN that Archives general counsel Gary Stern contacted Trump's team last fall to inquire about several boxes of records that appeared to have been taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump's relocation to Florida.

These were boxes that had been in the White House residence and thus had been packed up with other personal belongings of the first family, this person said.

Additionally, some Trump White House documents that have been handed over to the House select committee investigating January 6 had to be ...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/09/politics ... index.html

Investigators Find Gaps in White House Logs of Trump’s Jan. 6 Calls
Sparse call records are the latest obstacle facing the House panel, which is trying to document what President Trump was doing during the attack on Congress.
Luke Broadwater, Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has discovered gaps in official White House telephone logs from the day of the riot, finding few records of calls by President Donald J. Trump from critical hours when investigators know that he was making them.

Investigators have not uncovered evidence that any official records were tampered with or deleted, and it is well known that Mr. Trump used his personal cellphone, and those of his aides, routinely to talk with aides, congressional allies and outside confidants.

But the sparse call records are the latest major obstacle to the panel’s central mission: recreating what Mr. Trump was doing behind closed doors during crucial moments of the assault on Congress by a mob of his supporters.

The panel is still awaiting additional material from the National Archives and Records Administration, which keeps the official White House logs, and from telecommunications companies that have been subpoenaed for the personal cellphone records of ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/us/p ... calls.html

Cross posted from the Religion thread

Christian nationalism drove Jan. 6: Now it's embraced the Big Lie, and wants to conquer America
America has a choice between democracy and Christian nationalism, says author of new report: "We can't have both"
KATHRYN JOYCE

Earlier this week, a new Pew survey found that the share of Americans who believe Donald Trump was largely responsible for the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, has declined by nearly 10 percent over the past year, while the percentage of people who think he bears no responsibility has increased by almost as much. On Wednesday, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty released a new report that helps explain that shift: The same Christian nationalism that served as the unifying principle behind the Jan. 6 insurrection is also driving efforts among the faithful to rewrite the history of that day.

As two of the report's contributors, scholars Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, co-authors of "Taking America Back for God," noted in a launch event on Wednesday, Christian nationalist support for Jan. 6 rioters has doubled in the past year, while support for prosecuting those rioters has declined by 20 percent. That suggests, said Perry, "that this ideology is powerfully connected to a reinterpretation of these events" in a way that could become "a powerful motivator for future potential violence."

At more than 60 pages and drawing on the work of a number of academics, journalists and researchers, "Christian Nationalism and the January 6 Insurrection" is the most comprehensive account to date of the role of the movement in the attack. Within the political and cultural universe of Christian nationalism, America is a special place: It was created as a Christian nation and its founding documents were divinely inspired. Christianity should and must have a privileged position in public life, and "true Americans" are understood to be "white, culturally conservative, natural-born citizens."

That ideology, argues the report, served both as the unifying theme for the various factions that joined in the assault on the Capitol as well as the "permission structure" that allowed participants to justify their violence. To call those fringe ideas is misleading: Surveys repeatedly find that close to ...

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/11/christ ... r-america/

reminds me of South Africa between 1939 and 1949.

‘Denied’: Supreme Court Smacks Down Trump’s Attempt to Block Jan. 6 Committee
David Badash

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s request to block the National Archives from releasing to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack White House records from the former President’s administration. The Committee, which has already received some records, will be able to continue its investigation – except for those records Trump reportedly for years tore up and/or flushed down White House toilets.

https://twitter.com/intent/like?ref_src ... 2994180109

The Court once and for all rejected Trump’s claim invoking “executive privilege,” as Reuters reports, a claim he has no legal authority to invoke as he is not the current president.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly rejected Trump’s claim as well, not only authorizing the National Archives but urging them to act quickly to release Trump White House records.

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c ... committee/

And back to Georgia, and the "perfect phone call" ...

The crimes Trump will face in Fulton County, GA and the Black female prosecutor who is determined to bring him down
Liv Barker

Former President Donald J. Trump is going to face his crimes, if Fani Willis, District Attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, has anything to say about it.

“I’ve had to double my security. We’ve gotten a lot of comments. And they’re always racist. I don’t think it’s an insult to remind me I’m a Black woman. It’s a waste of their time.”

Willis announced the launch of a broad criminal investigation into Trump and his well-documented efforts to overturn Georgia’s vote in the 2020 presidential election. The investigation is still focused on Trump’s Jan. 2 phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.

Willis put the former president on notice by stating unequivocally that no one is above the law. “Anyone who violates the law will be prosecuted, no matters what their social status is. No matter what their economics are, no matter what their race or gender is. We are not going to ...

https://vozwire.com/the-crimes-trump-wi ... -him-down/

If it was a s perfect as the first one with Zelensky I fear for us all

Please, please, please.

‘Criminal Conspiracy to Defraud’: Trump ‘May Have Engaged in Criminal Acts’ Jan. 6 Committee Declares in Legal Filing
David Badash

The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack is declaring in court documents that Donald Trump may have committed multiple criminal acts, including “criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” and corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding.

The filing was made Wednesday night, in an attempt to block attorney John Eastman from claiming attorney-client privilege.

It states in part, “evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts, and that ...

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c ... al-filing/

Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Anti-LGBTQ Attorney Cleta Mitchell and OAN Personality
David Badash

The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack has issued six more subpoenas, including for far-right conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell, and an OAN personality accused of drafting the executive order which would have been used to seize voting machines.

Mitchell, an NRA attorney, and anti-LGBTQ activist, “participated in efforts to prevent, delay, or overturn election results; promoted false claims of election fraud to Members of Congress; and participated in a call in which former President Trump pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to ‘find’ enough votes to reverse his loss there,” the Committee’s chairman Bennie Thompson charges in a press release.

Also subpoenaed is Christina Bobb, who “was reportedly involved in efforts to draft an executive order for then-President Trump that would have directed federal agencies to seize voting machines in numerous states and was present in the ‘war room’ of Rudy Giuliani’s legal team in the Willard Hotel on January 6th.”

Another, Phillip Kline, “convened a meeting between then-President Trump and more than 300 state legislators in an attempt to disseminate purported evidence of election fraud and encourage legislators to sign a letter urging Vice President Mike Pence to delay the electoral certification on January 6th.”

Mitchell infamously was involved in CPAC’s ban of the gay Republican group GOProud. She has been associated with Donald Trump since at least 2011.

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c ... rsonality/

Scared Georgia Election Workers Push Back; Sue OAN and Rudy Giuliani
Christopher Powell

Election workers from the state of Georgia are suing former New York City mayor and Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and One America News (OAN) for election fraud claims the parties made that the plaintiffs say were defamatory.

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a voter registration officer in the 2020 election from Fulton County and her mother, Ruby Freeman, a temp worker in the same election, are suing Giuliani and OAN in a suit filed in ...

https://tplnews.com/scared-georgia-elec ... -giuliani/